As she looked down the sidewalk at the elderly clients lining up for groceries — one couple had arrived five hours earlier at 4:40 on this wintry morning — Karen Bauman made sure there was another human necessity available at the Asian Counseling & Referral Service food bank she runs: dignity.

It's the same need that Roman Turchiniak, a driver for the Senior Services Meals on Wheels program, filled with a minute's small talk in the apartment of an elderly woman living alone with a cat. He might be the only person she sees for days.

Turchiniak and Bauman know dignity is a basic need; it feeds souls.

"We try to treat people with respect. Some people in these situations, it's actually taken them a couple of months to come and ask for help," said Bauman. "They feel ashamed or are too proud to ask."

Senior Services, which helps more than 51,000 people, and Asian Counseling & Referral Service (ACRS), which serves 18,000 people, are among a dozen groups that receive support from The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy.

Bundled up against the cold

On that recent morning, Juan Cruz, 82, and his wife, Tiburcia Cruz, 70, took the bus from their Renton home to 919 S. King St., a portable office module that serves as the food bank.

Cruz carried a little notebook that is his daily diary. "See?" he said, pointing to a shakily written "4:40," showing the time he and his wife had arrived. He was bundled up against the cold in a sweater, hat and jacket. When it rains, those waiting to get into the food bank huddle under the nearby freeway overpass.

The ACRS food bank is open Wednesdays and Fridays. At 10:30 a.m., volunteers begin handing out reservation numbers for those in line; they will get in an hour later. Cruz displayed his number: 1, with his wife's, 2. That assured them the pick of the food.

The majority of the 5,800 households served by the food bank (which also delivers food to 11 senior centers and three other programs) are of Asian descent. So it is traditional Asian food staples, such as rice, tofu and vegetables for stir-fry, that are most in demand, while donated packages of matzo-ball soup mix sometimes get befuddled looks.

"Yes, yes, very good," Cruz said about the canned tomatoes, bananas, cinnamon rolls, hot sauce, graham crackers and basic staples he and his wife would take home.

A group of 35 volunteers makes the food bank run; Bauman, the full-time employee, is assisted by a part-time staffer. The volunteers hand out food and help translate for clients with little or no English skills.

One of the volunteers is Soon Versaevel, 76, who came here in 1972 from South Korea, where she met her husband, Don Versaevel, while she worked as a waitress at an Army club. She listed the languages in which she can ask clients basic questions, such as the ages and number of people in their household: "Japanese, German, Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Korean, Spanish, French, Ukraine."

She shows up four days a week to volunteer. "I retire. OK. Stay home? That's no good."

TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Meals on Wheels driver Roman Turchiniak delivers food to Ovidia Ellingseter in her subsidized apartment, and visits with her cat, Helen. Ellingseter writes a check for $7 — all she can afford on her budget — to cover seven meals. The average donation is about 80 cents a meal.

On this Friday morning, a shy and obviously pregnant young woman named Cynthia Gomez, 31, politely asked if she could go inside the portable to use the restroom. She and her husband, Roberto Gomez, came here last summer from the Philippines. He is attending community college to become a nursing assistant; she is a teaching assistant at a private elementary school and earns $8 an hour.

Bauman walked her through the portable so she wouldn't have to stand in line.

Among the items the young woman got were canned tomatoes, Hamburger Helper and oatmeal. As she left, Gomez smiled and thanked everyone. Bauman went back to overseeing the progress at the line. No one is turned away, she said.

"You saw that line. Would you stand in that line if you didn't need to?" she asked.

Small talk means a lot

On a recent Tuesday morning, Roman Turchiniak, or "T," as he's known, cheerfully announced, "Meals on Wheels!" at the front door of a small house where Alice Tuckwood, 76, lives with her cat, Tiki. It's been Tuckwood's home for five decades and is where she raised two daughters and then, four years ago, became a widow.

T, one of seven drivers for the Senior Services meals program, brought in a bag containing frozen meals of roast turkey, Salisbury steak, braised beef tips, spaghetti with meatballs and chicken pot pie, as well as powdered milk and rolls.

"These are new rolls. They accidentally shipped them to us. They're like hard snow, but they're good! They've got a lot of grain, which is what makes them heavy," T told Tuckwood, making small talk that he knows means a lot to his customers.

Tuckwood's home shows the signs of someone who doesn't like to throw out bills, paperwork or magazines, all stacked here and there. "My daughter stops by and goes through it all," Tuckwood said about the stacks. "She's real good."

She won't hear talk about moving. "Don't put me in a nursing home!" Tuckwood said. The 10 frozen meals that T delivered help her keep that independence.

Last year, Senior Services delivered more than 521,000 meals, of which 312,000 went to individual homes in Seattle, and the rest to 23 senior centers in Seattle and King County.

The agency asks for a $3 donation per meal. Some clients can pay the full amount, some nothing. The average donation is about 80 cents a meal. T said he never presses for payment. He understands the tough economics of his clients — two-thirds of them women, 90 percent over age 65.

One of his next stops was at a subsidized apartment complex where Ovidia Ellingseter, 69, and her cat, Helen, live in a tiny second-floor unit. Tidily set up in the living room were an easel, paintbrushes and tubes of oil paint. On the easel was a painting of two blue jays on a tree limb. But Ellingseter said she hasn't painted since 1999, when she had heart surgery.

"I felt very depressed," she said. She used to drive to the Safeway a few blocks away, but no longer does that because the trip made her anxious. Now, every once in a while, she takes the elevator down to her parked 1966 Dodge Dart, which she bought brand new, and starts the engine to make sure it still runs. Then she goes back to her apartment.

On this day, Ellingseter gave T a check for $7 to cover her order of seven meals, all she could afford on her budget. Her medical expenses, she estimates, take up most of her Social Security and annuity income. T said thanks, and petted her cat.

A few doors away, T made another stop at the apartment of Marsha Garcia, 79, who also has a cat, Pudgy. She has glaucoma, and an eyelid droops because of a stroke. She likes the frozen meals: "I can't see well enough to do any cooking. I burn myself."

She turned off the radio that is normally kept tuned much of the time to talk shows, while T put away the food and made conversation. Then he was off to deliver meals to another elderly woman.

"Meals on Wheels!" he announced, as she welcomed the nourishment he was bringing.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com